The pantomime now arriving on Platform 12 is running slightly behind schedule. In fact, it wasn’t supposed to be here at all – but since archaeological discoveries scuppered any chance of the Theatre Royal returning to its newly refurbished home in time for Christmas, Berwick Kaler’s 37th pantomime has been displaced to the trackside theatre tent originally constructed to house The Railway Children.

There are inevitably some losses – no wet slapstick sequence, for obvious reasons of safety, and no songsheet, since there is nowhere to hang it. But there are gains as well: the traditional black-light chase-scene is particularly impressive over a distance of 30 metres. And the traverse configuration breathes new life into familiar pantomime tropes. “Where’s the other half of the audience?” Kaler enquires. “We’re behind you!” the crowd choruses back.

If you thought the story of Dick Whittington had something to do with pest control in the City of London, Kaler’s script encourages you to think again. The plot takes detours to the Costa Brava and the neolithic era for reasons I can’t pretend to understand; while Dame’s son Martin Barrass (60 this year, as Kaler takes great delight in reminding him) spends most of the second half dressed as a seal.

David Leonard’s dastardly King Rat distinguishes himself with a geographical patter-tune that namechecks 300 countries in under three minutes. Principal girl Suzy Cooper sparkles brightly as ever; but it is incorrigible Brummie AJ Powell, a whippersnapper on only his 10th York panto, who is particularly fine as Whittington’s companion, despite it never being entirely clear what animal he is supposed to be. Ostensibly a meerkat, he seems to be the result of a liaison between the Lion King and a toilet brush brought up in the Black Country. But then the York pantomime has always been a strange beast.